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Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?

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Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?

#121

Post by arcdrag »

mendocino wrote: post #31
jaxn wrote: post #16

If you look at how salaries are distributed across the US public, the 60k - 100k category is way too large while 151k-200k should probably be just one range and not two. As someone who hires programmers, I am much more interested in how many people make between 60-70, 70-85, and 85-100.

The buckets might have a Valley bias. It seems the only programmers at SV companies that make less than 100k these days are interns.

Agreed. 100k is a tech-lead salary in St. Louis area...but houses can be bought for under 100k so I guess it balances out.

Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?

#123

Post by imandryk »

dasil003 wrote: post #80
imandryk wrote: post #78

I don't quite understand the factors involved in making salaries in SV so high compared to other locations, and I'm not having much success just googling. Could someone please briefly explain them to me or point me towards some useful resources so I can alleviate some of my ignorance in this area? Edit: I'm aware of the higher cost of living, but I'm thinking that's probably not the only significant factor.

Demand is astronomical, plus many funded startups have an inflated idea of how much and how quickly they will be able to make money, thus they overpay relative to the real value a programmer could bring.

Thanks!

Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?

#125

Post by scythe »

dasil003 wrote: post #82
sukuriant wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, this is a serious consideration. Location greatly affects pay, as cost of living changes. For example, it's substantially more expensive to live in Silicon Valley than it is to live in Cocoa Beach, FL or Seattle, WA

On the other hand London is more expensive than Silicon Valley and salaries are much lower. The correlation to cost of living is loose at best. In the case of Silicon Valley I'm convinced it's actually the tech money that raises the cost of living.

Salaries in Britain are in general lower than the US, especially as measured by purchasing power parity; the difference is about 30%. This is recouped in theory by the increased services provided by the British government (e.g. NHS and the Dole).

On the other hand, New York is more expensive than the Valley and salaries are, IIRC, even higher.

Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?

#126

Post by charlesdm »

troels wrote: post #106
pixdamix wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pound sign "£" near 15k might give you an hint....

There's a heck of a difference between being in London and somewhere else within the kingdom ...

That's what I meant. Obviously I know he is living in the UK.

Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?

#127

Post by bstx »

sp_ wrote: post #115
kayoone wrote: post #21

Quite interesting. In Germany or Europe very very few programmers would make more than 100k USD (around 70k EUR) unless he is in some position where he leads a team or oversees bigger projects. Then i see how cheap cars and computer hardware etc is in the US and i really start to wonder where this massive difference comes from. US engineers seem to earn way more and generally pay much less for many things. Apple hard…

This is exactly why I moved from Germany to the US. I was tired of being on the end of the salary bell curve at international conferences. Higher salary and lower taxes mean that my disposable post-tax income is now 3.5 times what it was in Germany. And I am not even in the Bay Area yet! From my point of view, the situation for software developers is particularly bleak though. You don't have to move to the United Sta…

My starting salary in the bay area right out of college is higher than what I would have conceivably made my entire career in Germany. I understand that small companies that do business locally operate with different economics, but what's the excuse for multinational corporations?

My decision to work in the US wasn't based in any way on expected compensation but rather on the excitingness of the job. Still, it's nice to be treated well as an employee.

Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?

#128

Post by fhars »

eru wrote: post #99
smackfu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unevenly sized buckets give weird data anyways. How would you show it on a graph? The buckets should be uniform, except for catch-alls at the ends, then you choose how to display them afterwards.

You could argue for uniformity in the logarithmic domain just as well.

But the buckets in the poll are even more ubequal on a logarithmic scale than on a linear scale.

Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?

#129

Post by Timothee »

almightygod wrote: post #97
Shenglong wrote: post #93

Are salaries generally higher at big companies (google/twitter/fb) or at startups?

statistically bigger companies will pay bigger salaries. Personally I am appalled at many of the SF startup salaries

Appalled in what sense? That they offer you to little or that engineers there are making way too much?

I'd guess the former, but I'd say it could go both ways…

Re: Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?

#130

Post by justin_vanw »

neild wrote: post #76
bartonfink wrote: post #2

Again, this doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense without location data. I'm voting with my salary adjusted to San Francisco levels by using the following adjustment tool: http://www.bestplaces.net/col/ I'd recommend that people do the same so we can remove a substantial source of noise from this poll and actually get a meaningful distribution.

That calculator is making a very common and yet very fundamental error: It assumes that cost of living adjustments should apply linearly across a salary range. It costs more to live in San Francisco that it does to live in Detroit. However, that additional cost is largely static: You'll pay a lot more for housing, you'll probably pay noticeably more for food, and you may pay somewhat more for clothing and other items…

I think you grossly underestimate the difference in housing costs.

In the Research Triangle area of North Carolina, you can get this 1300sft house for $643/month: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/211-Barbary-Ct-Cary-NC-275...

In Palo Alto you are looking at this 1140sft house for $4922/month: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4205-Wilkie-Way-Palo-Alto-...

This is not an extreme example. Housing costs in NC are a small fraction of what they are in the valley.

Also notice that the housing prices in NC are very consistent, the bubble didn't happen there. The values in Palo Alto swing up and down 30% or more in a span of 2 years.

Obviously the job market is better in Palo Alto, but top talent can get a job anywhere.

Consider a hypothetical engineer (software developer in east coast terminology). He might make around 100k in NC, and $140k with a good gig in the bay. After taxes, 401k, etc lets say this is a take home income of 60k and 95k. The valley engineer is paying $59064 for housing, leaving him around 36k for every other expense in his life, around $3k per month.

The Raleigh engineer pays $7716 for housing, leaving him $53k, or around $4415 per month.

So after you subtract housing, assuming purchase, the Raleigh engineer is better off initially. Of course, assuming Palo Alto housing prices don't plummet, the valley engineer is putting equity into the house which he can use if he moves for retirement.

Of course, there are other benefits to living in the valley, such as not having to live in North Carolina. Weather, opportunities, schools, healthcare, and the job market are far better here.

I previously lived near the area in NC that I'm describing, and I left to come work for a startup in Palo Alto. The quality of life here is far better.

Housing is outrageous though, but that is primarily a function of geography, being in a narrow valley near the sea, there is simply no room to expand. That is why all the towns in the valley are fighting high speed rail, they know that once the pressure is released by allowing easy access to jobs in the valley, housing prices will drop shockingly.

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